About Blocking and Jamming....

[Ramesses-Rules]

I think the first two or three cities must be placed in the most productive available locations. After that, blocking and jamming the development of rival civilizations can sometimes take priority over picking the next spot that offers the absolute best fat cross for development. Sometimes it is to block access to marble, stone, horses, iron/copper. Other times it is to cut off a whole chunk of territory from the opponent, even if that means building your third city is a relatively poor location.

On Monarch, the AI does a lot of blocking and jamming on me. He sticks a city right on the border of Thebes that has zero food sources and sits on pop. 2 or 3 for an eternity.

I lost my last game mainly because I didn't do some blocking/jamming against Ghandi, so he stuck cities in place that really messed up my expansion. I should have blocked him with a city placement.

Anyway, I'd like to hear your thoughts on blocking and jamming. When to do it? When not to do it? What are the trade-offs? This has always been a hard "call" for me early in games. Thanks for all replies!

------
Q: When is an Archer actually a Longbow?
A: When he is one of those Wang Kon archers who is practically born with 4 promotions and is fortified on a hill. I learned that one the hard way!

 

[noto2]

You need to do one of these things:
1-use military (tech BW and/or IW and/or AH early to find a strategic resource, settle a city near it, hook it up, and settle a few good production cities to pump out the units to kill your annoying neighbours)
2-out produce them even with fewer cities (running a very efficient economy, for example, wonderspamming and/or spamming GP to get ahead in tech. Once you're way ahead in tech you can easily deal with being blocked in)
3-use culture (build all the cultural bulidings, spread religions, build wonders, run artists, spam great artists, and flip his cities to yours)

hope that helps

 

[Terrapin]

I think I disagree with R-R from the get go. You can build 2-3 cities optimized for development if and only if there are no other civs nearby. If your early exploring warriors see another civ, you probably need to make a blocking city a priority. Once you have them blocked, it is easy enough to "back fill" the open territory you protected with your block. One nifty trick I have used a few times is when I spot a nearby civ, I set a warrior to watching them. If they try to send a settler toward me, I capture it and use it to build my blocking city. Typically, I have to sacrifice the warrior to buy time for the stolen-settler-city to build one or more defenders. Of course the price of a warrior watching an AI civ is that it is not out exploring, so you have to look at the map and make a decision with that in mind.

 

[noto2]

since when does the AI send an unescorted settler? What difficulty do you guys play at? At monarch and up all AIs start with archers, so settler stealing is not an option. Also, blocking is not always a good idea. It depends. If the land is laid out in a way that you can block off a whole bunch with a city or two (like with a peninsula), then maybe it is a good idea. It works better if you're cultural. Blocking, however, is much less important if you know you're going to be a warmonger and there is a strategic resource nearby.

 

[tsl04]

since when does the AI send an unescorted settler? What difficulty do you guys play at? At monarch and up all AIs start with archers, so settler stealing is not an option.

I'm currently playing on Emperor level, and I've occasionally spotted - and subsequently stolen - an unescorted settler. It's only happened to me 3 or 4 times, mind you. No idea why this happens, as at least 95% of the time the settler IS escorted ... obviously, the AI moves in mysterious ways every now and then ...

Of course, if you have, say, a veteran warrior sitting on a hill with maybe blitz or another unit nearby, you can always try to knock out the archer and then take the settler that way. I've done that several times and immediately used the settler to build a blocking city. It's a huge bonus if you can get it.

 

[noto2]

Whenver I kill an AI settler it turns into a worker for me...thus I can't steal settlers. Again, I think it's a function of difficulty level. Anyway, blocking is very costly, and I've learned from experience that it is often not worth it. For example, when the AI does it to me I just kill them...heh heh heh. Like if the AI is a long ways away from me, and they build a city right next to my capital in a sweet spot, I'll just pump out military units and make them pay for it. So that should make you realize they can do the same to you. Only block when you are absolutely certain it will benefit you in the long run.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

I used blocking in one game to monopolize horses. I was going to beeline to Knights and take him out in a Feudal war. In that situation, if you can get to Knights before they can get to Gunpowder, even a poor warmonger like me can really roll.

For guys like me who plan on building wonders, it is often worth it to build an early city to get marble, even if the location is mediocre, but I have had that backfire on my economy when my other early cities are not strong enough to compensate.

My other new rule is that I will go to war early with anybody who blocks me from having at least enough land to build six reasonably functioning cities. Without that, you're dead anyway.

As far as unescorted settlers are concerned, even on Monarch, if you make Settler your FIRST build, you can send him out unescorted so long as you have busted enough fog to see where you are going and don't wander too far (this is also a good way to avoid getting jammed out of your "prize" 2nd city location). Maybe that is how he caught an AI settler. I find it hard to imagine it happening, otherwise.

 

[Sciguy001]

Am I blind, or is this posted in the Civ Revolution forums? It realy doesn't seem like its about CivRev

 

[PiMan]

It started about CivRev I think, but a few people have deviated.

 

[Sciguy001]

The first post talks about monarch difficulty and Wang Kong, so I'm not sure if it is realy about Civ Rev. I can't believe no one realized that before.

 

[PiMan]

I haven't played CivRev in a while (explaining monarch difficulty), and wasn't reading closely (explaining pretty much everything else).

 

[Sciguy001]

Someone should move this thread to its proper location.